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	When Your Kids Push Your Buttons: The Newsletter by Bonnie Harris, M.S.Ed. Issue 2 My intention with this newsletter is to focus on some of the key points in my book, add new thoughts I have, and answer readers questions. I want to spread these ideas so more and more of you can parent with the honesty and integrity you want—rather than from some intellectual idea that gets you and your children stuck again and again. Too many of us parent according to what we think society expects of us together with what we learned in our childhoods—about us and about our parents. This combination is sure to set us up for getting our buttons pushed. My hope is that the book and the newsletter will help you trust both you and your child and learn what your buttons are and how to defuse them. The goal is for you to parent in the way that is appropriate for any given situation instead of having a standard reaction and punishment that makes no sense and doesn't work anyway. Also my intention is to sell more books. What I ask in return for this newsletter is your help in spreading this message. Please forward this to any friends or family you think might benefit, encourage them to subscribe to the newsletter and to buy the book, When Your Kids Push Your Buttons: And What You Can Do About It (Warner Books, 2003). Thank you. Contents: Purpose Discussion of key points from the book Questions from readers, answers and stories News of upcoming events or announcements 1. Purpose I began this newsletter to help readers put the ideas from the book into practice in daily life. In order for that to be successful, I need your questions. Your participation is imperative to making this newsletter interesting and rich. You can ask a question from your daily parenting life or you can ask me to elaborate on certain ideas from the book or any newsletter that may be unclear to you or that you are having a hard time applying. Depending on the number of questions, I may or may not be able to get to all of them in the following newsletter. Your question might be the basis of the discussion of key points or might be in the question and answer section. Keep in mind that most readers think I have more questions than I can answer, so they don't ask. This is not true unless I tell you otherwise. Ask away! 2. Discussion of key points This issue will focus on getting to the root of your child's behavior. As I describe in the book, all behavior has motivating factors (beginning on pg. 30). The behavior itself is only the tip of the iceberg—only what you can see floating on the surface. Those motivating factors are the huge part of the iceberg that lies hidden from view. When we react to our child's behavior alone—take it at face value—we are ignoring what is causing the behavior and where it is coming from, and we run the risk of colliding with our child in power struggles and reacting emotionally and ineffectively. Behavior is our child's expression of how he is doing inside—our barometer to let us know his internal "temperature." When his behavior is inappropriate, that is your cue that something is wrong. He is hurting, in turmoil, confused, upset, jealous, angry, sad, afraid, etc. (It also may have neurological or chemical causes that need to be looked at if none of the following works). That behavior is telling you he needs help. So even though the behavior may be pushing your buttons, even highly inappropriate, try hard to leave the behavior alone for the time being. You can come back to it later, problem solve and hold your child accountable, but if you criticize or blame him for the behavior you will get a defensive, resistent child to struggle with. You will want to punish him, put him in time-out, or yell at him for offending, embarrassing, or frightening you. Remember, how you react to the behavior is your responsibility, not your child's. You do not have to know what the motivating factor is in order to help your child. I cannot say this strongly enough. We are so accustomed to thinking we have to have all the answers before we can proceed. So we try to find out what's wrong. We ask stupid questions like, "Why did you do that?" "What's wrong?" "Why won't you just listen?"  "Who started it?" And we get stupid answers like, "I don't know." The reason is because most likely, our kids don't know. So don't ask! We also give unwanted advice, "Well, just walk away next time," "If you stop hitting her, she won't cry," "Just ignore it," "Do what I tell you!" "Say you're sorry." Don't tell your child what to do. State what you see. "When I see you hit your sister like that, I think that you must be feeling really angry at her for something. I know you know it's not okay to hit. But you must feel so upset that the temptation to hit is really strong." Notice the periods instead of questions marks. You are more likely to encourage your child to talk further. With more information, you can continue. "Well, I can certainly understand you'd be mad if she promised to give you a turn and then didn't. How can you get what you want without hitting her?" Then comes the problem solving. But it only works when your child knows you understand how he's feeling. If you find out that your teen is not doing her homework and her grades are slipping fast, the temptation is to pull in the reigns and forbid her to do what she wants with her time. Again you will be up against an angry, resistant teenager who you have broken connection with. You will learn nothing about why this is happening. Instead, "I got a call from your teacher saying that he is not getting homework assignments from you. I'd like to hear your side of the story and understand what's happening." You're more likely to get, "It's such a stupid class and he is the worst teacher. The assignments are dumb. I don't need to do them." Remember—tip of the iceberg. Share a time when you were in high school and had to deal with a teacher you hated or thought was dumb. Connection! Then ask, "What do you want out of this class? How can you get what you need and not let the teacher rob you of that?" Be your child's ally. Stay on her side and you will gain connection. There you can help her problem-solve and think through the situation herself to determine what's the responsible thing to do. You don't have to agree with her about what a jerk her teacher is. You are just understanding and validating how she sees things from her point of view. If the behavior is bad, we assume it is our job to punish it. If we don't, we're not meeting up to our standards of a good parent. We don't know how else to do it. But punishment will push her away. Connection is where everything is learned. It is the root of responsible behavior. I'll talk more about connection in the next issue. 3. Questions from readers: Q. I'm getting better at not letting my teenage daughter push my buttons, but I still have a problem regarding trust. My daughter has shared information with me about sexual activity and birth control. But she wants me to promise not to tell her dad. We always wanted our kids to be open and honest with us, but this is setting me up to not be open and honest with my husband. My heart is breaking, but your newsletter is helping me not to wallow in the hurt. I'm hurt because of my daughter's decisions, and I see how hurt my husband is when I keep information from him. When I do tell him anything, I feel like I'm breaking my daughter's trust. She told me she experimented with sex, but also says that she knows she is too young and does not expect to be sexually active in the near future. I took her to the doctor for birth control because she wanted it for help regulating her period and knows she wants protection when she does become active. She is afraid of her father's reaction. We can't believe any of this has happened. I feel like she has thrown away part of her youth. She is a good student and very pleasant, even with her parents. Any help in going further? A. There is a lot of good news here. You have raised a daughter to be open and honest. It makes perfect sense that she doesn't want to tell her father about sexual issues. One of the reasons your daughter wants you not to tell her dad is that she doesn't want direct interaction with him about that subject. You can tell her that your relationship with your husband means that you do not feel right about withholding information from him that you believe he has a right to know. You can assure her that you will explain to him that she would rather talk to you about it. Tell her you cannot be put in the middle. You want her to share with you, but she also needs to trust that you will handle the information with your husband with the utmost care and consideration of her feelings and concerns. If indeed her father would react in a way that she fears, this is good information for him to know. We all need to understand that if we expect our children to be open and honest with us, they need to trust us to listen and be supportive, not to judge and criticize. We can offer our help and suggestions—offer being the key word—but when they are told what to do or are yelled at for behaving badly, we lose that connection, sometimes for good. It sounds like your daughter has a good head on her shoulders realizing that she is too young for sex. And the important thing to note here is that her thinking is internal. It's coming from her instead of being told what she should do by you or her father. When children are allowed to come up with the solutions to their own problems, they learn responsible behavior from the inside out. She may have lost her innocence but in the doing has learned a very strong lesson. Let that be more important to you than her behavior. Q. My 5 1/2 year old gets easily frustrated over many little things, screams and throws tantrums and doesn't know how to control her anger. She speaks to us disrespectfully if we try to help or explain something. We then have to send her to her room in order for her to calm down so we can talk to her. She even puts herself in time-out occasionally when she knows she's frustrated. I've tried talking to her about why she is upset instead of putting her in time-out, but that results in disrespect too. What can we do during those outbursts of anger and frustration so we aren't pulling ourselves into the situation, leading her to turn her anger on us every time? Time-outs and taking privileges away don't seem to work. A. When we take our children's behavior personally—when we feel responsible for their problems and pain and think it's our job to solve them—we let ourselves get sucked into the anger or sadness or whatever it is. When we can create a good boundary and know the difference between our problems and theirs, we can disengage just enough to be there more fully for them. Otherwise, it's about us—what we have to do to fix it or make our child behave differently. Then we judge ourselves accordingly. Have we done a good job? Have we punished adequately? What's wrong with us if we haven't made our children behave the way we think they should? Her disrespectful behavior is not okay, but it is only the tip of the iceberg. You are making assumptions about her words and perceiving them to be disrespectful. But she is trying to tell you something and it's your job to get beneath the behavior to it's meaning. Perhaps she just has to blow out her anger and frustration and all she wants is for you to listen and not try to explain it or solve it. When you can hold that boundary between you, you can hold her (literally or figuratively) and allow her to have her anger. If she feels safe to get it out without being punished for it, then she will just express that anger and not add disrespect to it. If she is punished for it (time-out, sending her to her room, and taking away privileges are punishments) or feels criticized for expressing anger, she will tell you with dramatic words that appear disrespectful that you're not getting it—that what you're saying or doing shows that you don't understand. Let the anger come and go before you talk about more appropriate ways to express it. When she feels validated for having it, she will be more likely to hear your suggestions for getting it out—drawing, hitting a pillow, ripping paper, writing a note, etc. It's normal for a child her age to have anger and frustration. It may appear scary to you, but it is her problem not yours to take care of. If you are able to support her and help her with her problem, she will learn so much more self-control than when you try to solve it for her. (If you would like me to address what her anger may be about, write and give me some examples) Story: These techniques have been working well for us and even my husband is using them. Yesterday I took my two children to Target. My son began screaming when I tried to put him in the cart. I waited patiently and got him into the cart even though he was still crying. Although many people were staring, I stayed calm and told him that when he calmed down I would give him a hug. As his sobs dissolved into whining, I said, "You wanted to walk with Mommy instead of sitting in the cart. That made you feel mad. It's okay to feel mad, but instead of crying, you can say, ëI'm mad.'" He immediately stopped whining and asked me to put his shoe back on. It really does work well with him. Comment: This kind of empathy helps this little boy feel okay inside. This mother is not rewarding his crying, she is condoning his right to feel angry. Then she is giving him a way to express it more appropriately. He is still too young to control his crying but as he grows he will know that he is safe to say how mad he is. 4. News For any of you who are local to southern New Hampshire: I am doing Part 1 and Part 2 of the Buttons Workshop on Sat. April 3 and Sat. April 10 from 9:00-4:30 at Cheshire Medical Center in Keene, NH. The number to call for registration is 603 354-5460. You can email me if you want more information. Also I will be speaking in Walpole, NH on March 31st and near Exeter, NH on April 6th. April 7th I'll be talking about eating behaviors in Keene, NH. Check my website for more details on these. Click here to Read Previous Newsletters. Email Bonnie with questions or comments at bh@bonnieharris.com. ^ Top © 2008 Bonnie Harris, LLC | P : 603.924.6639 | E : bh@bonnieharris.com